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Transcriber's Note: Some typographical and punctuation errors have been
corrected. A complete list follows the text. Words in Greek in the
original are transliterated and placed between +plus signs+. Words
italicized in the original are surrounded by _underscores_.
THE BOOK-HUNTER IN LONDON.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: '_His soul was never so staked down as in a bookseller's
shop._'
ROGER NORTH.]
THE
BOOK-HUNTER IN LONDON
Historical and other Studies of Collectors
and Collecting
_WITH NUMEROUS PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS_
BY
W. ROBERTS
_Author of
'The Earlier History of English Bookselling,'
'Printers' Marks,' etc._
LONDON
ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
1895
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE xiii
INTRODUCTION xv
EARLY BOOK-HUNTING 1
BOOK-HUNTING AFTER THE INTRODUCTION OF PRINTING 12
FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW 44
BOOK-AUCTIONS AND SALES 98
BOOKSTALLS AND BOOKSTALLING 149
SOME BOOK-HUNTING LOCALITIES 168
WOMEN AS BOOK-COLLECTORS 259
BOOK THIEVES, BORROWERS, AND KNOCK-OUTS 274
SOME HUMOURS OF BOOK-CATALOGUES 293
SOME MODERN COLLECTORS 299
INDEX 323
[Illustration]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
'HIS SOUL WAS NEVER SO STAKED DOWN AS IN A
BOOKSELLER'S SHOP.'--ROGER NORTH _Frontispiece_
IN A SCRIPTORIUM 2
LAMBETH PALACE LIBRARY 5
ROMAN BOOKS AND WRITING MATERIALS 11
EARL OF ARUNDEL'S BADGE 16
SIR ROBERT COTTON 21
SIR JULIUS CÆSAR'S TRAVELLING LIBRARY 22
ARCHBISHOP USHER 26
WOTTON HOUSE IN 1840 28
MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD 29
SIR HANS SLOANE'S MONUMENT 30
LITTLE BRITAIN IN 1550 33
CHARLES, THIRD EARL OF SUNDERLAND 37
LONDON HOUSE, ALDERSGATE STREET, 1808 40
ST. BERNARD'S SEAL 43
MR. AUSTIN DOBSON 45
WILLIAM BECKFORD, BOOK-COLLECTOR 48
GEORGE JOHN, EARL SPENCER 51
JOHN, DUKE OF ROXBURGHE, BOOK-COLLECTOR 52
A CORNER IN THE ALTHORP LIBRARY 53
MICHAEL WODHULL, BOOK-COLLECTOR 57
GEORGE NICOL, THE KING'S BOOKSELLER 60
THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN, BIBLIOGRAPHER 63
REV. C. MORDAUNT CRACHERODE, M.A., BOOK-COLLECTOR 65
J. O. HALLIWELL-PHILLIPPS 71
CANONBURY TOWER, GEORGE DANIEL'S RESIDENCE 73
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 76
LAMB'S COTTAGE AT COLEBROOK ROW, ISLINGTON 77
WILLIAM HAZLITT 78
THOMAS HILL, AFTER MACLISE 79
SAMUEL ROGERS'S HOUSE IN ST. JAMES'S PLACE 81
SAMUEL ROGERS 82
ALEXANDER DYCE, BOOK-COLLECTOR 83
W. J. THOMS, BOOK-COLLECTOR 88
HOLLINGBURY COPSE, THE RESIDENCE OF THE LATE MR.
HALLIWELL-PHILLIPPS 91
JOHN DUNTON, BOOK-AUCTIONEER IN 1698 101
SAMUEL BAKER, THE FOUNDER OF SOTHEBY'S 102
SAMUEL LEIGH SOTHEBY 104
MR. E. G. HODGE, OF SOTHEBY'S 105
A FIELD-DAY AT SOTHEBY'S 106
KEY TO THE CHARACTERS IN THE 'FIELD-DAY AT SOTHEBY'S' 107
R. H. EVANS, BOOK-AUCTIONEER, 1812 109
JOHN WALKER, BOOK-AUCTIONEER, 1776 112
STAIRCASE AT PUTTICK AND SIMPSON'S 113
THE LATE HENRY STEVENS, OF VERMONT 115
MR. JAMES CHRISTIE, 'THE SPECIOUS ORATOR' 117
BENJAMIN HEATH, BOOK-COLLECTOR, 1738 123
SPECIMEN OF TYPE OF THE MAZARIN BIBLE 125
A CORNER IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM 127
ALDUS, FROM A CONTEMPORARY MEDAL 129
THE FIFTY-SEVEN ALTHORP CAXTONS 134
FROM 'GAME AND PLAY OF CHESSE,' BY CAXTON 135
SPECIMEN OF THE TYPE OF 'THE BOKE OF ST. ALBANS' 137
SPECIMEN PAGE OF TYNDALE'S TESTAMENT, 1526 138
JOHN MURRAY, OF SACOMB, BOOK-HUNTER 139
TITLE-PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF 'THE COMPLEAT
ANGLER' 144
FROM THE 'PILGRIM'S PROGRESS,' PART II. 145
CORNELIUS WALFORD, BOOK-COLLECTOR 152
THE SOUTH SIDE OF HOLYWELL STREET 153
EXETER 'CHANGE IN 1826 154
A BARROW IN WHITECHAPEL 155
A BOOK-BARROW IN FARRINGDON ROAD 158
A FEW TYPES IN FARRINGDON ROAD 159
HENRY LEMOINE, AUTHOR AND BOOKSELLER 161
THE LATE EDMUND HODGSON, BOOK-AUCTIONEER 164
ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD, 1606. FROM THE CRACE COLLECTION 169
THOMAS BRITTON, 'THE SMALL-COAL MAN,' COLLECTOR OF
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND MSS. 173
DUKE STREET, LITTLE BRITAIN, FORMERLY CALLED DUCK LANE 175
CHARLES LAMB, AFTER D. MACLISE 177
OLD HOUSES IN MOORFIELDS 178
JONES AND CO. (SUCCESSORS TO LACKINGTON) 180
INTERIOR OF LACKINGTON'S SHOP 181
LACKINGTON'S HALFPENNY 182
THE POULTRY IN 1550 184
THE OLD MANSION HOUSE, CHEAPSIDE 185
GILBERT AND FIELD'S SHOP IN COPTHALL COURT 186
E. GEORGE'S (LATE GLADDING'S) SHOP, WHITECHAPEL ROAD 188
MIDDLE ROW, HOLBORN, 1865 195
WILLIAM DARTON, BOOKSELLER 197
INTERIOR OF DARTON'S SHOP, HOLBORN HILL 198
JAMES WESTELL'S, 114, OXFORD STREET 200
SALKELD'S SHOP--'IVY HOUSE'--IN CLAPHAM ROAD 203
JOHN BAGFORD, SHOEMAKER AND BOOK-DESTROYER 204
MR. TREGASKIS'S SHOP--'THE CAXTON HEAD'--IN HOLBORN 205
DAY'S CIRCULATING LIBRARY IN MOUNT STREET 207
PATERNOSTER ROW ON A BANK HOLIDAY 209
JOHN EVELYN, BOOK-COLLECTOR 212
NEWBERY'S SHOP IN ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD 213
CHARLES TILT'S SHOP 221
BUTCHER ROW, 1798 224
CHARLES HUTT'S HOUSE IN CLEMENT'S INN PASSAGE 226
MR. WILLIAM D. REEVES, BOOKSELLER 227
MESSRS. HILL AND SON'S SHOP IN HOLYWELL STREET 231
MESSRS. SOTHERAN'S SHOP IN PICCADILLY 233
HONEST TOM PAYNE 239
HENRY G. BOHN, BOOKSELLER 243
JOHN H. BOHN 244
MR. F. S. ELLIS 245
A CORNER AT ELLIS AND ELVEY'S 246
WESTMINSTER HALL WHEN OCCUPIED BY BOOKSELLERS AND
OTHERS 247
JOHN HATCHARD (1768-1849) 252
JAMES TOOVEY, BOOKSELLER 253
JAMES TOOVEY'S SHOP, PICCADILLY 254
BERNARD QUARITCH, THE NAPOLEON OF BOOKSELLERS 256
QUEEN ELIZABETH'S GOLDEN MANUAL OF PRAYERS (FRONT
COVER) 262
QUEEN ELIZABETH'S GOLDEN MANUAL OF PRAYERS (BACK
COVER) 263
THE FRONTISPIECE TO 'THE LADIES' LIBRARY' OF STEELE 266
ELIZABETH PINDAR'S BOOKPLATE 267
THE ESHTON HALL LIBRARY 269
'EARNING HIS DINNER' 275
THE KING'S LIBRARY, BRITISH MUSEUM 276
'STEALS A BOOK, PLACES IT IN A NOVELETTE, AND WALKS
AWAY' 280
'HE HAD PLACED THE BOOK IN HIS POCKET. SOMEONE HAD
RELIEVED HIM OF IT' 282
THE LATE HENRY HUTH, BOOK-COLLECTOR 300
MR. HENRY H. GIBBS, BOOK-COLLECTOR 302
MR. R. COPLEY CHRISTIE, BOOK-COLLECTOR 303
THE LATE FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON 312
PORTRAIT BOOKPLATE OF MR. JOSEPH KNIGHT 313
'AN ORDER FROM MR. GLADSTONE' 315
PORTRAIT BOOKPLATE OF MR. H. S. ASHBEE 316
MR. T. J. WISE, BOOK-COLLECTOR 317
MR. CLEMENT SHORTER'S BOOKPLATE 318
MR. A. BIRRELL, BOOK-COLLECTOR 319
FACSIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE, 'PILGRIM'S PROGRESS,' FIRST
EDITION 321
[Illustration: _Roman Book-box._]
PREFACE.
_'THE Book-hunter in London' is put forth as a contribution to the
fascinating history of book-collecting in the metropolis; it does not
pretend to be a complete record of a far-reaching subject, which a dozen
volumes would not exhaust; the present work, however, is the first
attempt to deal with it in anything like a comprehensive manner, but of
how far or in what degree this attempt is successful the reader himself
must decide._
_The task itself has been an exceedingly pleasant one to the author, and
it only remains for him to thank, collectively, the large number of
friends and acquaintances who have so cordially favoured him with advice
and information on so many points. In only a couple of quite unimportant
instances has he experienced anything approaching churlishness. The
geniality and courtesy of the book-collector are proverbial, but
specimens of a different type are evidently to be found here and there._
_As regards the chapter on Modern Collectors, the author's object has
been to deal with a representative selection of the bibliophiles of
to-day. To aim at anything like completeness in this section of the book
would be highly undesirable, having regard to a proportionate
representation of the subject as a whole. Completeness, moreover, would
be an impossibility, even in a volume devoted entirely to modern men._
_The greatest possible care has been taken to prevent inaccuracy of any
kind, but whilst freedom from error is a consummation which every author
desires, it is also one of which few can boast. The reader will be doing
the author a favour by informing him of any mistake which may be
detected in the following pages. An omission in the account of Stewart,
the founder of Puttick's, may be here made good: he had the privilege of
selling David Garrick's choice library in 1823. The author regrets to
learn that Purcell (p. 165), a very intelligent bookseller, died some
months ago._
_'The Book-hunter in London' is the outcome not only of material which
has been accumulating for many years past, from published and
unpublished sources, but also of a long and pleasant intercourse with
the leading book-collectors and booksellers in London, not to mention a
vigorous and constant prosecution of one of the most pleasant and
instructive of hobbies. The author has freely availed himself of the
information in the works of Dibdin, Nichols, and other writers on the
subject, but their statements have been verified whenever possible, and
acknowledgements have been made in the proper places to the authorities
laid under contribution._
_W. R._
86, GROSVENOR ROAD, S.W.
INTRODUCTION.
IT would be quite as great a fallacy to assume that a rich man is also a
wise one, as to take for granted that he who has accumulated a large
library is necessarily a learned man. It is a very curious fact, but
none the less a fact, that just as the greatest men have the shortest
biographies, so have they been content with the smallest libraries.
Shakespeare, Voltaire, Humboldt, Comte, Goethe had no collection of
books to which the term library could fairly be applied. But though each
preferred to find in Nature and in Nature's handiworks the mental
exercise which less gifted men obtain from books, that did not prevent
them from being ardent book-lovers. Shakespeare--to mention one
only--must have possessed a Plutarch, a Stowe, a Montaigne, and a Bible,
and probably half a dozen other books of less moment. And yet, with this
poor show, he was as genuine a book-lover as Ben Jonson or my Lord
Verulam. Lord Burleigh, Grotius, and Bonaparte are said to have carried
their libraries in their pockets, and doubtless Shakespeare could have
carried his under his arm.
If all great men have not been book-collectors in the manner which is
generally understood by the phrase, it is certain that they have,
perhaps without a single exception, been book-lovers. They appear, for
the most part, to have made a constant companion of some particularly
favourite book; for instance, St. Jerome slept with a copy of Aristotle
under his pillow; Lord Clarendon had a couple of favourites, Livy and
Tacitus; Lord Chatham had a good classical library, with an especial
fondness for Barrow; Leibnitz died in a chair with the 'Argenis' of
Barclay in his hand; Kant, who never left his birthplace, Königsburg,
had a weakness in the direction of books of travel. 'Were I to sell my
library,' wrote Diderot, 'I would keep back Homer, Moses, and
Richardson.' Sir W. Jones, like many other distinguished men, loved his
Cæsar. Chesterfield, agreeing with Callimachus, that 'a great book is a
great evil,' and with La Fontaine--
'Les longs ouvrages me font peur
Loin j'épuiser une matière
Il faut n'en prendre que la fleur'--
hated ponderous, prosy, pedantic tomes. Garrick had an extensive
collection on the history of the stage, but Shakespeare was his only
constant friend. Gibbon was a book-collector more in the sense of a man
who collects books as literary tools than as a bibliophile. But it is
scarcely necessary just now to enter more fully into the subject of
great men who were also book-lovers. Sufficient it is, perhaps, to know
that they have all felt the blessedness of books, for, as Washington
Irving in one of his most lofty sentences has so well put it, 'When all
that is worldly turns to dross around us, these [the comforts of a
well-stored library] only retain their steady value; when friends grow
cold, and the converse of intimates languishes into vapid civility and
commonplace, _these_ only continue the unaltered countenance of happier
days, and cheer us with that true friendship which never deceived hope
nor deserted sorrow.'
It is infinitely easier to name those who have collected books in this
vast and unwieldy London of ours, than it is to classify them. To adopt
botanical phraseology, the _genus_ is defined in a word or two, but the
species, the varieties, the hybrids, and the seedlings, how varied and
impossible their classification! Most men have bought books, some have
read a few, and others many; but beyond this rough grouping together we
shall not attempt anything. One thing, however, the majority of
book-collectors agree in, and that is in regarding their own generation
as a revolution--they have, as Butler has described it in his picture of
an antiquary, 'a great value for that which is past and gone, like the
madman that fell in love with Cleopatra.'
Differing in many, and often material, points as one book-collector does
from another, the entire passion for collecting may be said to focus
itself into two well-defined grooves. A man either collects books for
his own intellectual profit, or out of pure ostentatious vanity. In the
ensuing pages there will be found ample and material facts in regard to
the former, so that we may say here all that we have to say regarding
the latter. The second type of book-enthusiast has two of the most
powerful factors in his apparently reckless career--his own book-greed,
and the bookseller who supplies and profits by him.
'What do you think of my library?' the King of Spain once asked Bautru,
the French wit, as he showed him the collection at the Escurial, at that
time in the charge of a notoriously ignorant librarian.
'Your Majesty's library is very fine,' answered Bautru, bowing low; 'but
your Majesty ought to make the man who has charge of it an officer of
the Treasury.'
'And why?' queried the King.
'Because,' replied Bautru, 'the librarian of your Majesty seems to be a
man who never touches that which is confided to him.'
There are many varieties of the ignorant collector type. The most
fruitful source is the _nouveau riche_. Book-collecting is greatly a
matter of fashion; and most of us will remember what Benjamin Franklin
said of this prevailing vice: 'There are numbers that, perhaps, fear
less the being in hell, than out of the fashion.' The enterprising
individual who, on receipt of a catalogue of medical books, wired to the
bookseller, 'What will you take for the lot?' and on a price being
quoted, again telegraphed, 'Send them along,' was clearly a person who
wished to be fashionable. Another characteristically amusing
illustration of this type of book-collector is related by an
old-established second-hand bookseller, who had bought at a country sale
some two or three hundred volumes in a fair condition. But they were
principally old sermons, or, what is worse, theology and political
economy. He placed a sample lot outside his shop, leaving the bulk of
the stock untouched. The little parcel attracted the attention of a
stylishly dressed man, who entered the shop and said, 'I'll take these
books, and, say, have you any more of this kind with this shield onto
them?' pointing to the bookplate attached, which bore the arms and name
of a good old county family. 'That box, sir, is full of books from the
same house, and probably every book has the same bookplate, but I have
not yet had time to examine them.' 'What's yer figger for them, any way?
See here, I start back to Chicago to-morrow, and I mean to take these
books right back along. I'm goin' to start a libery thar, and these
books will just fit me, name and all. Just you sort out all that have
that shield and name, and send them round to the Langham at seven sharp.
I'll be round to settle up; but see, now, don't you send any without
that name-plate, for that's my name, too, and I reckon this old hoss
with the daggers and roosters might have been related to me some way.'
'I remember,' says the Marquis d'Argenson, in his 'Mémoires,' 'once
paying a visit to a well-known bibliomaniac, who had just purchased an
extremely scarce volume, quoted at a fabulous price. Having been
graciously permitted by its owner to inspect the treasure, I ventured
innocently to remark that he had probably bought it with the
philanthropic intention of having it reprinted. "Heaven forbid!" he
exclaimed in a horrified tone; "how could you suppose me capable of such
an act of folly! If I were, the book would be no longer scarce, and
would have no value whatever. Besides," he added, "I doubt, between
ourselves, if it be worth reprinting." "In that case," said I, "its
rarity appears to be its only attraction." "Just so," he complacently
replied; "and that is quite enough for me."'
Another type which borders dangerously near to that which we have been
describing is the collector who, not necessarily ignorant, collects for
himself alone. The motto which Grolier adopted and acted upon--'Io
Grolierii et amicorum'--might have been a very safe principle to go upon
in the sixteenth century, but it would most certainly fail in the
nineteenth, when one's dearest friends are the most unmitigated
book-thieves. But perhaps even the too frequent loss of books is an evil
to be preferred to the egoistical meanness of the selfish collector.
Balzac gives in his 'Cousin Pons' a vivid delineation of such a person.
The hero is a poor drudging music-teacher and orchestra-player, who has
invested every franc of his hard-won earnings in the collecting of
exquisite paintings, prints, bric-à-brac, and other rare mementoes of
the eighteenth century. Despised by all, even by his kindred, trodden
upon as a nobody, slow, patient, and ever courageous, he unites to a
complete technical knowledge a marvellous intuition of the beautiful,
and his treasures are for him pride, bliss, and life. There is no show
in this case, no desire for show, no ambition of the despicable
shoddy-genteel sort--a more than powerful creation of fiction. A
strikingly opposite career of selfishness is suggested by the fairly
well-known story of Don Vincente, the friar bookseller of Barcelona,
who, in order to obtain a volume which a rival bookseller, Paxtot, had
secured at an auction, set fire one night to Paxtot's shop, and stole
the precious volume--a supposed unique copy of the 'Furs e ordinacions
fetes per los gloriosos reys de Arago als regnicoes del regne de
Valencia,' printed by Lambert Palmart, 1482. When the friar was brought
up for judgment, he stolidly maintained his innocence, asserting that
Paxtot had sold it to him after the auction. Further inquiry resulted in
the discovery that Don Vincente possessed a number of books which had
been purchased from him by customers who were shortly afterwards found
assassinated. It was only after receiving a formal promise that his
library should not be dispersed, but preserved in its integrity, that he
determined to make a clean breast of it, and confess the details of the
crimes that he had committed. In cross-examination, Don Vincente spurned
the suggestion that he was a thief, for had he not given back to his
victims the money which they had paid him for the books?
'And it was solely for the sake of books that you committed these
murders?' asked the judge.
'Books! yes, books! Books are the glory of God!'
Vincente's counsel, in defence of his client, in this desperate strait
maintained that there might exist several copies of the books found in
his possession, and that it was out of the question to condemn, on his
own sham avowal, a man who appeared to be half cracked. The counsel for
the prosecution said that that plea could not be urged in the case of
the book printed by Lambert Palmart, as but one copy of that was in
existence. But the prisoner's counsel retorted by putting in evidence
attested affirmation that a second copy was in France.
Up to this moment Vincente had maintained an imperturbable calm; but on
hearing his counsel's plea he burst into tears. In the end, Don Vincente
was condemned to be strangled, and when asked if he had anything more to
urge, all he could utter, sobbing violently, was, 'Ah! your worship,
_my copy was not unique_!'
Cousin Pons and Don Vincente are extreme instances of bibliomaniacs to
whom the possession of a book was the supreme happiness of life. The man
of Fiction and the man of Fact were at one in this passion of
acquisitiveness. Don Vincente was compelled by hunger--_mala suada
fames_--to become a book _seller_; and if it became a general rule for
book-collectors to become booksellers there would, we venture to think,
be a very material increase in police-court and, perhaps, criminal cases
generally. Mr. G. A. Sala tells us an amusing story of the late
Frederick Guest Tomlins, a historian and journalist of repute. In the
autumn of his life Tomlins decided to set up as a bookseller. He
purposed to deal chiefly in mediæval literature, in which he was
profoundly versed. The venture was scarcely successful. A customer
entered his shop one day and asked for a particular book, as marked in
the catalogue. 'I had really no idea it was there,' meditatively
remarked Mr. Tomlins, as he ascended a ladder to a very high shelf and
pulled out a squabby little tome. Then he remained about five-and-twenty
minutes on the ladder absorbed in the perusal of the volume, when the
customer, growing impatient, began to rap on the counter with his stick.
Thereupon Mr. Tomlins came down the ladder. 'If you think,' he remarked,
with calm severity, to the intending purchaser, 'that any considerations
of vile dross will induce me to part with this rare and precious little
volume, you are very much mistaken. It is like your impudence. Be off
with you!' A not altogether dissimilar anecdote is related by Lord
Lytton in that curious novel 'Zanoni,' in which one of the characters is
an old bookseller who, after years of toil, succeeded in forming an
almost perfect library of works on occult philosophy. Poor in everything
but a genuine love for the mute companions of his old age, he was
compelled to keep open his shop, and trade, as it were, in his own
flesh. Let a customer enter, and his countenance fell; let him depart
empty-handed, and he would smile gaily, oblivious for a time of bare
cupboard and inward cravings.
_À propos_ of a literary man turning bookseller, the experiment has
often been tried, but it has generally failed. Second-hand bookselling
seems to be a frequent experiment after the failures of other trades
and callings. We have known grocers, greengrocers, coal-dealers,
pianoforte-makers, printers, bookbinders, cheap-jacks, in London, adopt
the selling of books as a means of livelihood. Sometimes--and several
living examples might be cited--the experiment is a success, but
frequently a failure. The knowledge of old books is not picked up in a
month or a year. The misfortune which seems to dog the footsteps of many
men in every move they make, does not fail to pursue them in
bookselling. Some of them might almost say with Fulmer, in Cumberland's
'West Indian' (1771): 'I have beat through every quarter of the
compass . . . I have blustered for prerogatives, I have bellowed for
freedom, I have offered to serve my country, I have engaged to betray
it . . . I have talked treason, writ treason. . . . And here I set up as
a bookseller, but men leave off reading, and if I were to turn butcher I
believe they'd leave off eating.'
There can be no doubt about the fact that Englishmen as a rule do not
attach sufficient importance to book-buying. If the better-class
tradesman, or professional man, spends a few pounds at Christmas or on
birthday occasions, he feels that he has become a patron of literature.
How many men, who are getting £1,000 a year, spend £1 per month on
books? The library of the average middle-class person is in ninety-nine
cases out of a hundred the cruelest possible commentary on his
intelligence, and, as a matter of fact, if it contains a couple of
volumes worthy of the name of books, their presence is more often than
not an accidental one. A few volumes of the _Sunday at Home_, the
_Leisure Hour_, _Cassell's Magazine_, or perhaps a few other monthly
periodicals, carefully preserved during the twelve months of their
issue, and bound up at the end of the year--with such stuff as this is
the average Englishman's bookcase filled. Mark Pattison has gone so far
as to declare that while the aggregate wealth of the United Kingdom is
many times more than it was one hundred and fifty years ago, the circle
of book-buyers, of the lovers of literature, is certainly not larger, if
it be not absolutely smaller. It may be urged that a person with £1,000
per annum as income usually spends £100 in rent, and that the
accommodation which can be got for that amount does not permit of one
room being devoted to library purposes. This may be true, but this
explanation is not a valid excuse, for a set of shelves, 13 feet by 10
feet 6 inches, placed against a wall will accommodate nearly one
thousand octavo volumes--the genius of the world can be pressed into a
hundred volumes. An American has advised his readers to 'own all the
books you can, use all the books you own, and as many more as you can
get.' The advice is good, and it is well to remember that by far the
majority of great book-collectors have lived to a ripe old age. The
companionship of books is unquestionably one of the greatest antidotes
to the ravages of time, and study is better than all medical formulas
for the prolongation of life.
The man who has resolved upon getting together a collection of
first-class books may not unreasonably be appalled at the difficulties
which stand in the way. And what, indeed, it may be asked, will become
of the hundreds and thousands of books which are now all the fashion?
How many will survive the levelling process of the next half a score of
years, and how few will be known, except to bibliographers, half a
century hence? The lessons of the past would aid us in arriving at some
sort of conclusion as regards the future, if we were inclined to indulge
in speculation of this vain character. It will, however, be interesting
to point out that of the 1,300 books printed before the beginning of the
sixteenth century, not more than 300 are of any importance to the
book-collector. Of the 50,000 published in the seventeenth century, not
more than perhaps fifty are now held in estimation; and of the 80,000
published in the eighteenth century not more than 300 are considered
worth reprinting, and not more than 500 are sought after.
In a curious little book, 'L'An 2440, rêvue s'il en fut jamais,'
published in Paris a century ago, there is a very quaint description of
the process by which, in an improved state of society, men would apply
themselves not to multiply books, but to gather knowledge. The sages of
the political millennium exhibited their stores of useful learning in a
cabinet containing a few hundred volumes. All the lumber of letters had
perished, or was preserved only in one or two public libraries for the
gratification of a few harmless dreamers that were tolerated in their
laborious idleness. This pleasant little picture, drawn by M. L. S.
Mercier, of the state of things five centuries hence, is in strong
contrast to the painful plethora of books of the present day. Dr.
Ingleby, the famous Shakespearian scholar, is credited with the idea of
establishing a society for the purpose of procuring books which no one
else would buy; but this society (the 'Syncretic Book-club') could not
have had any success if the vast quantities of unsaleable rubbish which
one meets with on every hand are to be taken into account. Doubtless Dr.
Ingleby would have included in his scope such books as Lord Lonsdale's
'Memoir of the Reign of James II.,' 1803, which fifty years ago sold for
5-1/2 guineas, but which, within the past few months, has declined to
two shillings!
There was a time when even old and unsaleable books had a commercial
value. Before the cheapening of paper, a second-hand bookseller had
always the paper-mill to fall back on, and the price then paid, £1 10s.
per cwt., was one inducement to dispose of folios and quartos which
remained year in and year out without a purchaser. The present price of
waste-paper is half a crown a hundredweight, so that the bookseller is
now practically shut out of this poor market. Indeed, an enterprising
bibliopole was lately offering 'useful old books,' etc., at 3s. 6d. per
cwt., free on the rails, provided not less than six hundredweight is
bought. 'To young beginners,' he states, 'these lots are great
bargains'; but whether he means young beginners in literature or young
beginners in trade, is an open question. In either case, 'useful old
books' at the price of waste-paper are a novelty. There is a certain
amount of danger in the wholesale destruction of books, for posterity
may place a high value, literary and commercial, on the very works which
are now consigned to the paper-mill. Unfortunately, posterity will not
pay booksellers' rent of to-day. Just as those books which have the
largest circulation are likely to become the rarest, so do those which
were at one time most commonly met with often, after the lapse of a few
decades, become difficult to obtain. In one of his 'Echoes' notes,
Mr. G. A. Sala tells us that, in the course of forty years'
bookstall-hunting, he has known a great number of books once common
become scarce and costly--_e.g._, Lawrence's 'Lectures on Man'; Walker's
'Analysis of Beauty'; Millingen's 'Curiosities of Medical Experience';
Beckford's 'Vathek' in French; Jeremy Bentham's works; and Harris's
'Hermes.' Possibly the disappearance of these and many other books may
be attributed to certain definite causes. For example, in the early
years of this century one of the commonest books at 1s. or 1s. 6d. was
Theobald's 'Shakespeare Restored'; but fifty years later it was a very
rare book. The interest in Shakespeare and his editors had become quite
wide-spread in literary circles, and literature in any way bearing on
the subject found ready purchasers.
Just as the disappearance of certain books sends their prices up
considerably in the market, so the unexpected appearance of others has
just the reverse effect. Until quite recently one of the scarcest of the
first editions of the writings of Charles Dickens was a thin octavo
pamphlet of seventy-one pages, entitled 'The Village Coquettes: a Comic
Opera. In two Acts. London: Richard Bentley, 1836.' So rare was this
book that very few collectors could boast the possession of it, and an
uncut example might always be sold for £30 or £40. About a year before
his death, Dickens was asked by Mr. Locker-Lampson whether he had a
copy; his reply was: 'No, and if I knew it was in my house, and if I
could not get rid of it in any other way, I would burn the wing of the
house where it was'--the words, no doubt, being spoken in jest. Not long
since, a mass of waste-paper from a printer's warehouse was returned to
the mills to be pulped, and would certainly have been destroyed had not
one of the workmen employed upon the premises caught sight of the name
of 'Charles Dickens' upon some of the sheets. The whole parcel was
carefully examined, and the searchers were rewarded by the discovery of
nearly a hundred copies of 'The Village Coquettes,' in quires, clean and
unfolded. These were passed into the market, and the price at once fell
to about £5. The most curious things turn up sometimes in a similar
manner. A little sixpenny bazaar book ('Two Poems,' by Elizabeth Barrett
and Robert Browning, 1854) was for a long time extremely rare, as much
as £3 or £4 being paid for it when it occurred for sale. Suddenly it
appeared in a bookseller's catalogue at 2s., and as every applicant
could have as many as he wanted, it then leaked out that the bookseller,
Mr. Herbert, had purchased about 100 copies with books which he purposed
sending to the mill. Even 'remainders' sometimes turn out to be little
gold-mines. The late Mr. Stibbs bought the 'remainder' of Keats's
'Endymion' at 4d. per copy. We do not know what he realized by this
investment, but their value for some years has been £4 and upwards.
[Illustration: _The late Henry Stevens, of Vermont._]
The subject of book-finds is one about which a volume might be written.
Every 'special' collector has his fund of book-hunting anecdotes and
incidents, for, where the rarity of a well-known book is common
property, there is not usually much excitement in running it to earth.
The fun may be said to begin when two or three people are known to be on
the hunt after a rare and little-known volume, whose interest is of a
special character. To take, as an illustration, one of the most
successful book-hunters of modern times, the late Henry Stevens, of
Vermont. Until Mr. Stevens created the taste for Americana among his
fellow-countrymen, very few collectors considered the subject worth
notice. And yet, in the space of a quarter of a century, he unearthed
more excessively rare and unique items than the wildest dreamer could
have supposed to exist. Books and pamphlets which were to be had for the
proverbial old song when he first came to this country quickly became
the objects of the keenest competition in the saleroom, and invariably
found buyers at extravagant prices. As an illustration, although not an
American item, we may mention that when a copy of the Mazarin Bible was
offered at Sotheby's in 1847, the competitors were an agent of Mr. James
Lenox (Stevens' client) and Sir Thomas Phillipps in person; the latter
went to £495, but the agent went £5 better, and secured the prize at the
then unheard-of price of £500. At first Mr. Lenox declined to take the
book, but eventually altered his mind, wisely as it proved, for although
at long intervals copies are being unearthed, the present value of Mr.
Lenox's copy cannot be much short of £4,000. During 1854 and 1855 Mr.
Stevens bought books to the value of over 50,000 dollars for Mr. Lenox,
and on reviewing the invoices of these two years, 'I am confident,' says
Mr. Stevens, 'that, if the same works were now' (1887) 'to be collected,
they would cost more than 250,000 dollars. But can so much and so many
rare books ever be collected again in that space of time?' In December,
1855, Mr. Stevens offered Mr. Lenox in one lump about forty Shakespeare
quartos, all in good condition, and some of them very fine, for £500,
or, including a fair set of the four folios, £600, an offer which was
accepted, and it may be doubted whether such a set could now be
purchased for £6,000. Mr. Lenox was for over ten years desirous of
obtaining a perfect copy of 'The Bay Psalter,' printed by Stephen Daye
at Cambridge, New England, 1640, the first book printed in what is now
the United States, and had given Mr. Stevens a commission of £100 for
it. After searching far and wide, the long-lost 'Benjamin' was
discovered in a lot at the sale of Pickering's stock at Sotheby's in
1855. 'A cold-blooded coolness seized me, and advancing towards the
table behind Mr. Lilly, I quietly bid, in a perfectly neutral tone,
"Sixpence"; and so the bids went on, increasing by sixpences, until half
a crown was reached and Mr. Lilly had loosened the string. Taking up
this very volume, he turned to me and remarked, "This looks a rare
edition, Mr. Stevens; don't you think so? I do not remember having seen
it before," and raised the bid to 5s. I replied that I had little doubt
of its rarity, though comparatively a late edition of the Psalms, and at
the same time gave Mr. Wilkinson a sixpenny nod. Thenceforward a
"spirited competition" arose between Mr. Lilly and myself, until finally
the lot was knocked down to Stevens for 19s.' The volume had cost the
late Mr. Pickering 3s. It became Mr. Lenox's property for £80.
Twenty-three years later another copy was bought by Mr. Cornelius
Vanderbilt for 1,200 dollars.
In a letter to Justin Windsor, the late J. Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps
gave some very curious and interesting information respecting
book-collecting in the earlier half of the present century. 'About the
year 1836,' he wrote, 'when I first began hunting for old books at the
various stalls in our famous London city, black-letter ones and rare
prints were "plenty as blackberries," and I have often found such things
in unlikely places and amidst a mass of commonplace rubbish, exposed for
sale in boxes labelled, "These books and pamphlets 6d. or 1s. each,"
outside an old bookseller's window, where another notice informed the
passer-by that "Libraries were purchased or books bought;" and thus
plainly showed how such now indeed rarities came into the possession of
an ignorant bibliopole. It was not, however, till about 1840 that I
turned my attention to the more special work of collecting Shakespeare
quartos, in which, I may say, I have been very successful. It was at one
of George Chalmers' sales that I first bought one or two, and after that
I hunted for them in all parts of the country, and met with considerable
success, often buying duplicates, and even triplicates, of the same
edition and play. At one time I possessed no less than three copies of
the very rare quarto edition of "Romeo and Juliet," 1609, and sometimes
even had four copies of more than one of the other quartos. Not so very
long before this period, old Jolley, the well-known collector, picked up
a Caxton at Reading, and a "Venus and Adonis," 1594, at Manchester, in
a volume of old tracts, for the ignoble sum of 1s. 3d. Jolley was a
wealthy orange-merchant of Farringdon Street, London, and entertained me
often with many stories of similar fortunate finds of rare books, which
served to whet my appetite only the more. But I was soon stopped in my
book-hunting career by the appearance all at once on the scene of a
number of buyers with much longer purses than my own, and thus I was
driven from a market I had derived so much pleasure from with great
regret. Some time afterwards circumstances rendered it desirable that I
should part with a large number of my book-treasures by auction and to
the British Museum; but even then I retained enough to be instrumental
in founding the first Shakespearian library in Scotland, by presenting
to the University of Edinburgh, amongst other rarities, nearly fifty
copies of original quartos of Shakespeare's plays, printed before the
Restoration, and to keep sufficient myself of the rarest and most
valuable examples.'
Sometimes the notes of a former possessor have a considerable literary
interest, as, for example, the copy of Stowe's 'Survey of London,' 1618,
presented to the Penzance Library by the late J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps,
who has written, under date December 24, 1867, the following note: 'This
is a favourite book of mine. I like to read of London as it was, with
the bright Thames crowded with fish, and its picturesque
architecture. . . . I should not have discarded this volume for any
library, had I not this day picked up a beautiful _large paper_ copy of
it, the only one in that condition I ever saw or heard of.'
As an illustration of the enhanced value possessed by books having notes
written in them by their owners, it may be mentioned that when the great
Mr. Fox's furniture was sold by auction after his death in 1806, amongst
the books there happened to be the first volume of Gibbon's 'Decline and
Fall,' which apparently had been given by the author to Fox, who wrote
on the fly-leaf this note: 'The author at Brooks' said there was no
salvation for this country, until six heads of the principal persons in
the administration were laid on the table. Eleven days after, this same
gentleman accepted a place of "lord of trade" under those very
ministers, and has acted with them ever since.' This peculiarly nasty
little note sent the value of the odd volume up to £3 3s. Gibbon,
writing in his 'Autobiography' of Fox, says, 'I admired the powers of a
superior man, as they are blended in his attractive character with the
softness and simplicity of a child,' an opinion which he might have
modified if he had lived to read the foregoing note. When Canning's
books, for the most part of an exceedingly commonplace and uninteresting
character, came under the hammer at Christie's in 1828, the competition
was extremely keen for all volumes which bore the great statesman's
autograph, and as most of the books contained more or less elaborate
indications of Canning's proprietorship, his executors received nearly
double the sum which they could reasonably expect. Similar illustrations
occur every year at book-auctions.
The idiosyncrasies of collectors might make quite as long a chapter as
that of books which have belonged to famous persons, and it is for the
same reason that we have to deal briefly with each. It is curious that
almost as soon as book-collecting became at all general, the 'faddy' man
came into existence. Dr. John Webster, of Clitheroe, who died June 18,
1682, aged seventy-two, for example, had a library which was rich in
books of romance, and what was then termed 'the black art'; but Webster
was the author of a rare volume on witchcraft, so that his books were
his literary tools--just as, a century later, John Rennie, the
distinguished civil engineer, made a speciality of mathematical books,
of which he had a collection nearly complete in all languages. Dr.
Benjamin Moseley's library, which was sold by Stewart in March, 1814,
was composed for the most part of books on astrology, magic, and
facetiæ. The Rev. F. J. Stainforth, whose library was sold at Sotheby's
in 1867, collected practically nothing but books written by or relating
to women; he aimed to secure not only every book, but every edition of
such books. He was a most determined book-hunter, and when Holywell
Street was at its lowest moral ebb, this eccentric gentleman used to
visit all the bookshops almost daily, his inquiry being, 'Have you any
women for me to-day?' Mr. Stainforth, who died in September, 1866, was
for many years curate of Camden Church, Camberwell, and was from 1851
incumbent of All Hallow's, Staining, the stipend of which was about
£560, and the population about 400. 'Bless my books--all my Bible books,
all my _hocus pocus_, and all my _leger-de-main_ books, and all my other
books, whether particularly mentioned at this time or not,' was the
prayer of a Scotsman of about a century and a quarter ago, and so
perhaps the Rev. Mr. Stainforth thought, if he did not utter
occasionally some such petition.[xxix-A]
Half a century ago one of the most inveterate frequenters of
book-auctions was a certain Dr. G., of diminutive stature, on account of
an awkward deviation of the spine. At that time the appearance of a
private purchaser at a sale was a very rare event, and one which, when
it occurred, invariably met with a more or less hostile reception from
the fraternity. Dr. G.'s first appearance produced a good deal of
sensation. The hunchback, it is true, was rather shabbily dressed, but
'l'habit ne fait pas le moine,' and is certainly no trustworthy index to
the pockets of the wearer. Excitement reached fever-heat when a Wynkyn
de Worde was put up and persistently contested for by the doctor, who
ran it up against the booksellers present (some of whom quickly desisted
from the fun for fear of burning their fingers), one of whom, far
exceeding his commission, obstinately refused to give in until the book
was knocked down to him to his own dismay, and the delight and ironical
compliments of his colleagues. After this _contretemps_ the doctor had
it pretty much his own way; his name was duly entered on the sale
catalogue, and his address was known. The next day our bookseller,
sobered by reflection, called on the doctor, confessed his sin of the
previous day, humbly asked for absolution, and offered him the book at
an immense loss on the sale price. 'If you were,' replied the doctor,
'to bring the book at my door for nothing, I would take it with a pair
of tongs and drop it into the gutter.' It was a puzzle to everyone what
the little doctor did with all his purchases, which were limited chiefly
to classical books. At his death, however, it transpired that he bought
for the various Universities of the United Kingdom. The doctor's son, a
poor curate, entered his late father's library for the first time, and
found there a mass of books, which occupied nearly a month in selling,
and realized, to his delight, a large sum of money.
The contempt with which Dr. G. received the bookseller's proposal is
peculiarly typical of the book-collector. If he cannot obtain what he
wants just exactly when he wants it, he does not care about it. The
book-collector is doubtless too prone to despise everything which is not
quite in his line, forgetting that all branches of literature contribute
in some degree, greater or lesser, to the bulk of human knowledge. No
man can be universal, even if he had the wealth of a dozen Rothschilds,
or the mental vigour and versatility of a hundred Gladstones.
The book-hunter has, however, his good traits, which sometimes require a
good deal of finding, it is true. We need not dwell at great length on
his apparently unconquerable habit of beating down the prices, for the
custom is too well known to require much explanation; but a view of the
other side of the picture is only fair. A few years ago a well-known
bookseller catalogued a copy of the 'Book of Job' at a very low figure.
A wealthy collector, whose purchases were generally closed on the
judgment of a distinguished bookman, asked to have the copy sent on
approval. It was despatched; but came back within a few days. No
explanation was volunteered: when, however, the collector came into the
shop a short time after, he was asked why he had returned the book. His
answer was to the effect that he could not persuade himself that the
illustrations were really by Blake, particularly as the price asked was
so low. A week or so after this a distinguished art-critic, hearing of
the whereabouts of this copy, asked to have it on approval: in sending
it the bookseller enclosed a note to the effect that some doubt had been
expressed as to the genuineness of the plates. In a few days came a
cheque from the man of art for £10 over and above the catalogue price,
and a note to the effect that the illustrations were not only
unquestionably by Blake, but in the finest possible state.
Last summer a certain bookseller sold, after some considerable amount of
haggling, a very fine Missal for £65, which was £5 less than its
catalogue price. A few weeks after the purchaser called and paid the
additional £5, explaining that a friend of his had taken a violent fancy
to the book, and begged to be allowed to possess it at £70. Another
honest book-collector, discovering that he had bought a book
considerably cheaper than an example had been sold at Sotheby's, and £2
less than Mr. Quaritch had asked for a similar copy, sent his bookseller
a present of a parcel of books to make up the difference in the two
amounts.
With these few introductory and perhaps desultory pages, the reader is
invited to the more solid feast provided for his delectation in the
following pages.
FOOTNOTES:
[xxix-A] Mr. Stainforth's collection ranged over 300 years, and, amid
much utter rubbish, there were a few things of considerable rarity,
notably one of only three complete copies known of T. Bentley's
'Monument of Matrones,' 1582, formerly in the libraries of Herbert,
Woodhouse, Heber and Bliss. It included two autograph letters of the
Right Hon. T. Grenville, and realized £63; Anne Bradstreet's 'Tenth Muse
lately sprung up in America,' 1650, £12 10s.; and a copy of Dame Juliana
Berners' 'Booke of Hauking,' etc., £13. Nearly fifty items appear under
the name of Aphra Behn; whilst there are twenty-one editions of Jane
Porter's 'Poems,' which realized the grand total of 14s. The library
comprised 3,076 lots (representing, perhaps, twenty times that number of
volumes), and realized the total of £792 5s.
[Illustration]
THE BOOK-HUNTER IN LONDON
EARLY BOOK-HUNTING.